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Although I try to spend time outdoors every day with Evie, sometimes, due to weather, or illness or whatever, it’s just not possible to get out and we have to think of fun things to do indoors.

An artist friend gave me a few ideas for messy play activities that are great for lots of different areas of a child’s development, and give kids the freedom to ‘express themselves’ (ie make a godawful mess) in a contained way, using ingredients you can generally find around the house.

I advise wearing old clothes (or no clothes) for all of these.

Shaving foam in the shower

Undress child, undress self (or wear a plastic apron). Get in shower, but don’t turn on the water. Get shaving foam. Proceed to spray it on to a wall or shower door. Make patterns in the foam using fingers or toys. Spread it about a bit. Turn shower on and rinse it all off when finished. Hope the smell of Old Spice does not last forever.

Flour on a tray

Take a sieve, some flour and a large tray (a colourful tray would be best to reveal patterns underneath). Sift the flour on to the tray. Draw on and play with the flour experimenting with cookie cutters and kitchen utensils. Hope you don’t have to answer a knock on the door looking like Miss Havisham from Great Expectations.

Food is for fun

Raid your kitchen cupboards. Useful items include: instant noodles, jelly, dry pulses, rice, dry pasta, empty squirty bottles, food colouring. Make the noodles/jelly. Add food colouring if you need to add some pizzazz. Lay out a selection of these foods in little pots. Lay out some sheets of paper. Let your child squish, mash, slop and spread the different kinds of food all over the paper. If you are brave, fill a squirty bottle with a paste of flour, water and food colouring. Hope the stains wash out.

Sticky situation

Get sticky back plastic, like this. Put the sticky back plastic on a windowpane the child can reach, STICKY SIDE OUT. Use masking tape to fix in place. For younger children simply stick pretty/interesting things on: feathers, leaves, sequins, bottle tops etc. For older children you could make a game to stick on “things beginning with ‘B'”, or “things that are red” for example. For older children still, you could stick on tissue paper to make a stained glass window. Hope you don’t have to create your own sticky back plastic using intricately placed strips of Sellotape.

Get in the box, kid

This one comes courtesy of A.Bogie (great name) who commented on my ‘Mums don’t have time to be ill’ post last week. She had the brilliant idea of finding a large, empty cardboard box, putting your toddler inside and handing over the crayons, letting them draw all over the inside of the box while you sit down and drink a cup of tea. The crayon is contained. The child is contained. It is pure genius.

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4 Responses to Five messy play ideas to do at home

Emilysays:

1 May, 2014 at 13:32

Love, love, love the box idea. I spent a lot of time making things from boxes, and some inside them when i was a kid. Challenging to get one big enough for twins – although perhaps a good way to segregate them haha! Nothing beats a box on a rainy day!

etrindalsays:

1 May, 2014 at 15:14

Great ideas, I love the shaving foam idea for getting little ones to enjoy bath time, too!

Jeanne foleysays:

1 May, 2014 at 16:15

I’ve used the box idea before, a headboard came and the kids I look after went inside and decorated it like their own house, they even made a letter box and the younger children loved posting paper through. This activity was used for weeks. It also gave the older kids their own space

Rachelsays:

8 May, 2014 at 7:21

The box one is great:) ha ha… Great blog… Keep me updated with more ideas… I will need them. Great photo of Evie:) hopefully see you soon rach (ebsie’s mate)! X

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